The Congress’ main challenger BJP has spared no effort to ensure that history is repeated.

Apart from blame games and mud-slinging, the party manifestoes tried their best to woo traditional voter banks.

Besides, drawing their national leaders for the campaign, State leaders including CM Siddharamaiah, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha M. Mallikarjuna Kharge, BJP Chief Ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa, among others sweated out to woo the voters. “BJP is spreading hatred among voters in Karnataka by putting promos in Chandrashekhar’s channel”, Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal told media after the party’s meeting with the EC. The BJP led by 15 percentage points among late deciders while it had trailed by two points among those who had decided prior to campaigning. “It was only when Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji formed the government that Babasaheb was conferred the title”, PM Modi said.

“The Congress wants to win elections in an undemocratic manner…”

Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday that he had now learnt to deal with the Prime Minister. When his disciples asked him why he had not retaliated, the Buddha said that since he had not accepted the man’s “gift of anger”, it had gone back to that person.

“The Congress is projecting the BJP as an anti-Dalit party, but people are wise enough to understand what is right”, he said. However, Siddaramaiah stole the BJP’s thunder to an extent when he accepted the proposal to give special religious status to Lingayats – a traditional voter base of the BJP. He even said that with a fund of 1.5 Lakh crore every field in Karnataka will be watered. “All the development schemes are stuck like the Bengaluru traffic”, he added.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over allegation that BJP leader B Sriramulu had bribed former Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan seeking an order favouring a mining company owned by G Janardhan Reddy. “He is absolutely convinced now, and he is right, that he is going to lose Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and he is going to lose 2019”.

He further alleged that Congress had repeatedly stonewalled attempts to grant the OBC Commission a constitutional status in Parliament as it did not care about empowering the weaker sections.

The opposition BJP also brought in a slew of union ministers including Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, to interact with the southern state’s electorate and pitch for the party’s return to power.